FRONTIERS OF ZOOLOGYDale A. Drinnon has been a researcher in the field of Cryptozoology for the past 30+ years and has corresponded with Bernard Heuvelmans and Ivan T. Sanderson. He has a degree in Anthropology from Indiana University and is a freelance artist and writer. Motto: "I would rather be right and entirely alone than wrong in the company with all the rest of the world"--Ambroise Pare', "the father of modern surgery", in his refutation of fake unicorn horns.

Sunday, 11 March 2012

Devil Monkeys Demolished

When I mentioned the subject of Devil Monkeys before, I mentioned the fact that there were distinct and different kinds of them and most notably the tailed kind as opposed to the tailless or short-tailed kind that is possibly the same as the Freshwater Monkey creature or Kappa. The long- tailed creature has an elongated doglike snout, ears that are pointed and pricked up, a long thick tail that can be reported as a brush like a fox's tail, and they are reported to leap like a kangaroo and leave a three-toed elongated track. Several cases do also say "three or four toed tracks." The coat is usually a brownish grey but it is often reddish or dark (black) and the fur is shaggy at the shoulders. When it stands on its hind feet it is generally three to four feet tall, or up to five feet (Coleman/Hughe/ Trumbore Field Guide pages 60-61, illustration on page 61 by Harry Trumbore reproduced below)
When such a creature opens its mouth it shows distinctive long sharp canines: it has "dog teeth"

There is a known creature native to North America that matches this description, is that size and shape, and it is known to sometimes "Leap like a Kangaroo"is the coyote.note the body posture assumed while leaping in the photograph reproduced below.

Here is the coyote in dark coat phase, assuming a more upright position, and the approximate scale comparison to a human being as shown below in my mock-up diagram. Coyotes can frequently assume a vertical position in order to pounce on small creatures on the ground, like rodents. in

the photograph, the animal is shown in the process of doing exactly that.

DEVIL MONKEYS: (NORTH AMERICA)

These vicious, marsupial-like primates have reportedly attacked humans across North America since 1934.
Devil Monkeys are a unique breed of NAPE (North American Ape) that have been described as being about 3 to 4-feet tall, although some eyewitnesses have sworn that these furry fiends can reach a height that is in excess of 7-feet. It seems clear, however, that those who have had an encounter with this larger version of the beast are actually describing a run-in with a prototypical HAIRY HOMINID and not the smaller, more primate-like Devil Monkey.Unlike the legendarily gorilla-like BIGFOOT or YETI, these creatures — which have been seen throughout the American South and Mid-West and as far North as Alaska — have been described as a shaggy, canine-faced baboon-like creatures with powerful, almost kangaroo-like legs, a trait they share with the South America’s notorious “goat sucker” the CHUPACABRA. [Devil Monkeys are indeed closest to one type of Chupababras-but WITH the hair still on! - DD]
Other distinguishing traits that Devil Monkeys are said to bear include 3-toed, razor-clawed feet, tiny pointed ears and a long, often bushy, tail.
The first reported encounter with this swift, dangerous predator occurred in 1934, in South Pittsburgh, Tennessee. According to the reports — which were allegedly published in national newspapers — eyewitnesses described a mysterious beast that could “leap across fields” with “lightening speed.”This ability to jump great distances — up to 20-feet according to some accounts — have led some to speculate that these animals may have something in common with the MYSTERY KANGAROOS that have been seen throughout the United States for decades. The suggestion is that those who think they’re seeing kangaroos from a distance are, in fact, spying Devil Monkeys.[This is an unwarranted assumption and misplaced kangaroos are automatically a more likely possibility than any currently-unknown species simply on the basis that we KNOW there are kangaroos and that they are frequently imported: see also the recent Kappas article concerning their appearance in Japan-DD]
While these 1934 encounters may or may not be associated with this phenomenon, the first “official” Devil Monkey sighting occurred in 1959, while a couple by the name of Boyd were driving through the mountains near their home in Saltville, Virginia.
According to their account, an ape-like beast attacked their car, leaving three scratch marks on the vehicle. The The Boyd’s daughter, Pauline, described the terrifying attacker:

4 Comments so far

I live in a small town in West Virginia, and I was with my brother and my mother driving home one night. It was around 7:30 or 8:00 I can’t really be sure, but we were laughing and talking and just having fun. I saw something run in front of the vehicle, and my brother saw it but my mother didn’t. What we saw wasn’t necessarily alarming but it looked like a monkey/lemur with a really long tail.
It was small, like a lemur and it had a tail like a lemur, but it ran like a monkey. It just freaked me out.

Found this site after seeing a black monkey like creature running around in my neighborhood in the Florida Panhandle. Creature appears to be about 3 feet in height, lanky and seems to hang with some feral cats in the neighborhood. It runs away when I approach and cleared a 6 foot chainlink fence with 3 strands of barbed wire on top the other night. Real creepy thing that causes some uneasiness when it is around.

keep in mind not everything has a cryptozoological explination, lacie. what you saw might have been something called a sherman’s fox squirel. ive never seen one my self, but they are a very endangered species that fits your discription almost exactly.

Checking the "Biologist's" track with the tracks of coyotes and wolves seems to show that the wolf too big and broad to be the 'toe' part of the Devil Monkey's track, and the individual toes are too big, but the smeared and skidded track of a coyote in the snow can be about the right size and shape. It should be noted that all the depictions of the Devil Monkey show it is a digitigrade animal like a canid and not a plantigrade like a primate at all: furthermore the pricked and pointed ears at the top of the head are nothing like a monkey's ears but exactly like a wolf or coyote. And actually, it is much more common for a dog track to seem three-toed, or a wild dog to be missing a toe, than it would be for a primate to be missing TWO toes

3-Toed, Skidded, Coyote Track in Snow
At approximately scale indicated, From Trail Below

Another trail in snow with skidded coyote tracks; This one is a male and he has sat down and left the imprint of his scrotum at the bottom of the photo between his hinder footprints

IMHO, the comparison of the two body profiles in running is close enough to say it is an exact match

Some more comparisons of the "Biologist's" drawings with coyotes. The ears being laid back are a submissive gesture. The Devil monkey's narrow protruding chest is that of a quadruped in the imporoper posie coyote" the tions and lengths and shapes of the limbs are similar. The tail is probably twice too long but that part is consistently represented and probably results from a false impression on the part of the witness. The end of the tail is the appropriate "Brush" shape. And the eyes do not only glow in the same way, they do so in the same colour.

"Dogfaced" portraits above, comparing cotote to the illustration at American Monsters. Please note the doglike and UNmonkeylike ears. Below are some more photos of coyotes "Jumping around like kangaroos" to help prove the point. Yes, coyotes have been reported to leap six feet high and twenty feet broad, equivalent to the performance level of a human athlete in good condition.

The Devil Monkey is supposed to be the origin for the Louisiana/Chocktaw legendary creature,
The Nalusa Falaya according to Mark Hall. This is illustrated below but it looks to be merely another local variant on the Werewolf legend. Tis creature is said to "Sneak up on prey while crawling along on its belly like a snake" and coyotes do THAT part as well.

It is also noteworthy that the range of the Devil Monkeys in North America lagely coincides with the range of the coyote, in red on the map from Wikipedia reproduced below. The significant departure is that Devil Monkeys are not reported in the areas of the Great Plains and Southwest where coyotes are better known and seen routinely by the locals, going by the map in the Coleman/Huyghe Field Guide to Bigfoot, Yeti and Other Mystery Primates Worldwide.

This article posts photographs including copyright notices for other individuals than this author. This author is not claiming ownership of those photos or trying to make any representation that he MIGHT have ownership of those images: those images are posted here as educational aids and they were chosen solely to make a visual comparison with other articles posted in this article. These photos and text quotes are all under the definition of "Fair Use" as per the legal notice posted at the bottom of each page of this blog.

7 comments:

In this case I think that the biologist's sighting may actually be a large feral cat. Cats can stand on their hind legs for short periods of time, and I know this from experience with my cat. And the leaping ability also matches. Even my cat, who is rather overweight, can easily leap over a fence. In this case, the laid-back ears would actually be an aggressive gesture.

I will admit he drew something which LOOKS like a large cat on its hind legs. However: 1) the coyote is much larger than a house cat and in the right size range for the sighting, 2) the running posture is a VERY close match, save only that the "Biologist" made the tail probably twice too long, obscuring the fact that it is a "Brush" tail and not a cylindrical typical cat's tail, and 3) the tracks are also closerin size to a coyote's tracks, allowing for the fact that the heel being placed down on the ground is uncharacteristic (also in the drawing, the creature is digitigrade).

I believe the witness saw the face head-on, misjudged the length of the snout as too short and hence thought the face was more catlike, and made up the drawings under that misapprehension.

Even excepting that one case, it still is a better case that the general run of the tailed Devil Monkey reports are coyotes, from the other witness' drawings and the usual run of the descriptions.

Incidentally, I also have more coyote tracks I found subsequently to publishing this, and several of the tracks have the inner two toes close enough together that their imprints regularly make only a single imprint, and it does look as though there are only three toes.

Never thought of a coyote as a culprit in the "devil monkey" sightings, probably because I grew up in California and coyotes are commonplace there. Still I find it surprising that so many people can not recognize a coyote as they do not look much different many common dog breeds such as the German shepherd. By the way I always thought the Deridder Roadkill was just a dead chow.

I agree with Tyler Stone that the animal in that sighting may have been a cat. But not necessarily a common house cat. Could it have been a puma or an escaped leopard cat or serval? The last two are imported regularly into the United States for the creation of certain cat breeds. Indeed one of these breeds, the savannah cat(a serval/domeatic hybrid)can be up to 30 lbs in weight and about 20" (or a bit more) at the shoulder compared to the 8 lbs of the average domestic cat.

OK, I have made my case and in the felids vs canids debate I have made three statements which need to be addressed if you are going to say that a cat is more likely than a distorted version of a more common dog. Among those is the point of the tracks, Which I felt I found a good correspondance to (I also posted one of the clearer "Lopsided" coyote prints in another article following this). If you can produce a leopard cat or serval cross that will leave the resemblance to a 3-toed (or merge-toed) track including the heel and the claws on the print, I will grant you might have a contender.

No need to get angry, I did not mean that ALL tailed sightings devil monkey sightings may be cats just that one particular sighting. The man who gave the sighting did not mention any footprints, the picture just combined a mock-up of the creature in the sighting compared to a man plus the most commonly reported footprint type. These footprints probably are coyote tracks.

What I meant to imply was that coyotes are very common, they routinely wander into cities in broad daylight even as far east as New York and should be recognized by an American biologist unless he is a very very inexperienced one. Savannahs (and similar breeds) on the other hand are still very rare and may well be occasionally reported as cryptids, especially some of the so-called phantom cat reports.

Other reports can be easily coyotes as most people seem woefully ignorant of even the commonest of animals. If the biologist's sighting was of a coyote then that biologist should go back to school, he clearly needs additional learning.

I am not angry, far from it. And my understanding was that the drawing of the footprint WAS intended to go with the drawing of the creature. Effectively, that put the creature sighting into the "Phantom Pantther" category--And that category DOES include a history of mistaken sightings of Canids. In this case, I'll still stick to my observation that the body secrion of the animal running is a dead-on exact match for the phot of the coyote riunning that I had for comparison. And once again, I am not angry: perhaps I was trying a mite too hard to make a point which I considered to be valid. I get a little passionate at times, nothing to worry about.

BTW,The "Biologist" is not further identified, we do not know his/her name or their credentials, we do not even know if their interest was in animals, plants, fungi or microorganisms. In other words, they could very well have been even a professional Biologist in any of a number of fields and still not have seen a live coyote in the wilds, strange as though that may sound.

But I do appreciate their attempt at drawing a creature they did not recognise. I believe some parts of their drawings to be closely accurate, but that they misremembered things especially around the edges. That happens a lot of time and you can tell where witnesses focused their attention by the part of the description which seems the most accurate.

This blog does NOT allow anonymous comments. All comments are moderated to filter out abusive and vulgar language and any posts indulging in abusive and insulting language shall be deleted without any further discussion.

Popular Posts

In order to be fair and have more choices, there are now two Popular Posts lists: the first one is for the last 30 days and the second one is for all-time favorites. Some posts may appear on both lists temporarily.

Associated Sites

Disclaimer

In Accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, any copyright material on display here is under Fair Use without any claim of ownership or any profit accrued by the display. The Material herein is for non-profit educational or criticism puposes only. Notwithstanding the provisions of Sections 106 and 106a, the fair use of a copyrighted work including reproduction and distribution of said material as specified in that section, for purposes of education, news reporting, commentary or criticism, scholarship or research, to persons who have expressed a prior interest in receiving such material for such purposes, is NOT an infringement.